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WOMEN’S fertility could be extended for another 12 years after scientists succeeded in growing human eggs in a laboratory from ovarian stem cells, it is claimed today.

The technique, developed by scientists at the University of Tennessee, offers fresh hope to millions of women worldwide seeking fertility treatment.

One possibility of the research is that pre-menopausal ovaries could be revitalised by colonising them with younger stem cells.

It is estimated that this technique could delay the natural menopause by ten to 12 years. The average age for the menopause for women in the UK is 51.

The research challenges the traditional scientific dogma that a woman receives all her potential eggs in the womb.

At birth, a woman’s ovaries contain about two million egg-producing follicles. By puberty their number has fallen to about 400,000, and it continues to drop until, at the menopause, too few remain to allow her to become pregnant.

The research, published in the Journal of Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, suggests limitless supplies of eggs could be grown from cells scraped off the surface of ovaries.

However, Professor Robert Winston, one of the world’s leading fertility experts, last night advised infertile couples to treat the findings with a degree of caution.

Lord Winston said: “These eggs still need to be matured and it will be a very long time, at least 12-15 years, until the techniques are available to make this a possibility.

“We all need to be very, very cautious about this and not make it out to be more than it is. It is interesting but we should not be too optimistic. These eggs are not fertilised, and I suspect, not capable of being fertilised. They don’t have a chance of maturing because to do so they would need to be in a follicle.”

In the research, details of which are published today, scientists took surface cells from the ovaries of five women aged 39 to 52.

These were used in experiments in which the cells were grown in the laboratory for five to six days, either with or without exposure to a growth- stimulating oestrogen medium called phenol red.

Samples cultured without the growth medium became immature small cells of various types.

But those grown in the presence of phenol red transformed directly into large egg-like cells. They went on to become mature human eggs “capable of being fertilised and developing into an embryo".

Harvesting eggs from the ovarian surface is relatively easy, and can be done using a flexible telescope-like instrument called a laparoscope.

The team, led by Professor Antonin Bukovsky, noted: “Development of numerous mature eggs from adult ovarian stem cells in vitro offers new strategies for egg preservation, IVF utilisation, and treatment of female infertility.”

Source: news.scotsman.com